The Beatles hold the title as one of the most influential bands in Rock & Roll history, playing an outstanding role in the widespread admiration of popular music. Throughout their career they experimented
with pop, rock, folk, and psychedelia, popularizing each style. It was estimated in 1985 that the band had sold over one billion records worldwide making them the top selling artists of all time.
In 1957, guitarist John Lennon formed the skiffle group The Quarrymen with a few high school friends. A few months later, he was joined by Paul McCartney who also played guitar. As the member line-up faced numerous changes, George Harrison joined in 1958 becoming a permanent bandmate along with Lennon and McCartney. The group went through many name changes and eventually settled on The Beatles which is derived from the word combination of the insect "beetle" and the word "beat". In 1960, they embarked on a north east tour of Scotland as the back-up band for Johnny Gentle hiring Tommy Moore as their drummer. Moore left shortly and was replaced by Norman Chapman who several weeks later was called for National Service. Pete Best, the former drummer of The Blackjacks and bassist Stuart Sutcliffe joined The Beatles in time for their performances in Hamburg, Germany. There they were recruited by Tony Sheridan to be his backing band for a few of his recordings, one of them being the German hit "My Bonnie" (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur). Sutcliffe was absent from the recordings as he had left the band prior to pursue an art career.
The band returned to Liverpool toward the end of 1960, were they would often perform in the Merseyside area at the Cavern Club. Brian Epstein became their manager in 1962 and was on a mission to land the Beatles a record contract. Although declined by Decca Records, he persisted and eventually got the band signed to EMI's Parlaphone label by producer George Martin. Problems soon began to arise as the band and Martin were unsatisfied with Best's performance and lack of compliance with the group. He was fired on August 16, 1962 and replaced by the former drummer of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr. They recorded their first single with Starr "Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You" which became a hit in the UK in September 1962. "Please Please Me" followed in 1963 topping the charts and is considered the classic British Invasion single. The album of the same name occupied the top spots on the chart for thirty weeks making The Beatles the most popular rock and roll band around.
The Beatles' fame was quickly rising in the UK, however Parlophone's American equal, Capitol Records refused to release their singles in the US as they were hesitant because in the past no British band was capable of attaining commercial success. However, the Beatles' music began to appear on American independent radio stations influencing Capitol to reconsider their decision. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was released in the US on December 26, 1963 and skyrocketed to the top of the charts. A few months later they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show triggering the beginning of "Beatlemania" as a record breaking 73 million viewers tuned in to watch the band perform. Within the next several months, the Beatles occupied the top five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. From that point onwards, the group became an incredible phenomenon dominating pop music worldwide.
During the summer of 1964, The Beatles released A Hard Day's Night, the accompanying soundtrack to the film of the same title. It featured the hit songs "Tell Me Why", "Can't Buy Me Love", and "A Hard Day's Night". Beatles for Sale followed a few months later and was deemed one of their weakest efforts. Their second film and accompanying soundtrack Help! were issued in August 1965 and were received with great praise owing its success to the tracks "Ticket To Ride", "It's Only Love", "Yesterday", and the title track. 1965's Rubber Soul displayed a more sophisticated and mature sound. Their progression into adulthood is evident in such songs as "Norwegian Wood", "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me", and "Nowhere Man". The album proved to be a commercial success and is considered one of their greatest. Their seventh studio album, Revolver, became a number one hit in the UK and in the US in 1966 owing its success to the hit songs "Yellow Submarine", and "Eleanor Rigby"
In 1967, the Beatles released the infamous Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which is widely recognized as the most influential rock album of all time. The album was innovative and artistic in every sense as it experimented with different sounds and recording techniques as well as featured unique cover artwork. The album earned Grammy Awards in 1967 for Album of the Year, Best Engineered Recording, Contemporary Album, and Best Album Cover. The Beatles, which is more often referred to as The White Album appeared in 1968. Despite its success, tensions began to develop within the band during the recording and after its release. They managed to issue three more albums Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, and Let It Be before their official breakup in 1970.
Each member set out to pursue their solo careers and did so successfully. Several rumors circulated regarding a possible reunion, however the tragic assassination of John Lennon on December 8, 1980 prevented such a possibility. Anthology 1 was released in 1995 featuring rare recordings and previously unreleased material. It included the single "Free as a Bird" which was the first new Beatles' song in 25 years. In 2000, the compilation album 1, which contained every number one single the band released from 1962 to 1970, became the biggest selling album of the year. In June 2006, Cirque Du Soleil premiered LOVE, their tribute to The Beatles at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

For such an anticipated showdown, there wasn’t all that much going on in the media area on Tuesday night. Most radio interviews had been done on Monday in the Nokia’s downstairs lounge, where all of the Top 13 were paraded down a long hallway of stations set up for remote feeds. Fox affiliates got their own time with the season 8 bunch in an area set up outside the Nokia Theater doors and accessible to just about anyone off the street. That’s where we saw Allison Iraheta graciously pose with a couple of eager girl fans after the show, and also ran into Chicken Little himself, Kevin Covais, who was getting recognized left and right.

Meanwhile, out by the loading dock, we spotted Megan Joy and David Archuleta having a light-hearted chat before he was chauffeured away by a woman who looked very much like his mom and Megan was ushered back inside for more rehearsals.

Ryan Seacrest left the building just after eight, but not before asking a crowd of onlookers, “Who’s it gonna be?” Does that guy ever break from hosting duties?

Surprise special guest Rod Stewart made a stealth exit after a relatively quick post-show rehearsal. We couldn’t make out the song, only that it was mid-tempo, which narrows it down to a couple dozen possibilities.

A flock of paparazzi had gathered outside the backstage exit and went berserk when Extra correspondent Teri Seymour appeared. According to one such shutterbug, Simon Cowell’s ex-girlfriend was seen crying in the same spot earlier in the evening after a fan allegedly grabbed her by the neck and gave her a scare.

As for the final two’s post-show plans? A long to-do list that includes taping Wednesday night’s opener, rehearsing with the Top 11, and many, many interviews. Of course, it’s just the start of their weeks-long talk-fest. Here’s some of what they had to say on Tuesday night:

On the winner’s song, “No Boundaries” Adam: “It’s a great song, and it actually has a really great message. There was a lot of lyrics and it was a big song. We didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, so it was kind of a rush job. The recordings are coming out soon and they’re both really, really good.”

On their best performancesKris: “I think I did my best on ‘Ain’t No Sunshine.’ I had already rehearsed it plenty, and it was ready.”Adam: “I wouldn’t have picked ‘Change Is Gonna Come’ for myself, but when Simon gave it to me, I looked at the words and it really moved me. Anyone who feels oppressed can relate to that song. It’s been a civil rights anthem for a long time, there’s all sorts of new civil rights issues that are coming up right now.”

On their friendshipKris: “We’ve been roommates since the Top 13.”Adam: “[But] we don’t get naked together.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is an unusually diverse genre, related to industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and black metal, yet generally free from derivatives and connections to other genres or styles.

History

Dark ambient evolved partially based on several of Brian Eno's early collaborations that had a distinctly dark or discordant edge, notably "An Index of Metals" (from Evening Star (1975)), a collaboration with Robert Fripp that incorporated harsh guitar feedback, the ambient pieces on the second half of David Bowie's Low (1977) and "Heroes", Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980), a collaboration with Jon Hassell, and particularly the fourth installment of his ambient series, On Land (1982).

Ambient industrial projects like Coil, Lilith, Lustmord,[1] Zoviet France, and Nocturnal Emissions evolved out of industrial music during the 1980s, and were some of the earliest artists to create consistently "dark" ambient music. These artists make use of industrial principles such as noise and shock tactics, but wield these elements with more subtlety.[2][3] Additionally, ambient industrial often has strong occultist tendencies, with a particular leaning toward Chaos Magick, often giving the music a ritualistic flavor. Ambient industrial is one of several directions that post-industrial music took on after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle in 1981. The last material that TG recorded in the studio, In the Shadow of the Sun and Journey Through a Body, was ambient, and pointed in the direction that several of TG's offshoots (notably Coil and CTI) would take.[4] Among the many artists who work in this area are Coil, CTI, Lab Report, Lustmord, Hafler Trio, Nocturnal Emissions, Zoviet France, PGR, Akira Yamaoka, Thomas Köner, Controlled Bleeding, Nine Inch Nails (Ghosts I-IV), early Techno Animal, Robin Rimbaud, Final and Deutsch Nepal. Many of these artists are eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial. Ambient industrial often consists of evolving dissonant harmonies of drones and resonances, low frequency rumbles and machine noises, sometimes supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices and other found sounds, often processed to the point where the original sample cannot be recognized. Entire works may be based on radio telescope recordings (Arecibo Trans-Plutonian Transmissions), the babbling of newborn babies (Nocturnal Emissions Mouths of Babes), or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires (e.g. Alan Lamb's Primal Image).

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an ethereal wave trend emerged within the dark wave movement, that tended toward moody atmospheric pieces rather than jangly minor-key rock. Ethereal wave was mainly associated with the Projekt record label, with bands like Black Tape for a Blue Girl composing moody ambient soundscapes.

By the mid-1990s, a large number of artists were working in ambient industrial, ambient noise, ethereal wave, illbient, isolationism, and other emerging "dark ambient" styles. Among these artists were Autopsia, Vidna Obmana, Daniel Menche, Lull, Raison d'etre, Lord Insomnia, Nefelheim, Hieronymus Bosch (band) and Shinjuku Thief. In the same time dark ambient vibrated into contemporary classical music. Example of this can be project Aghiatrias or solo works of composer Vladimír Hirsch.

Generally the music tends to evoke a feeling of solitude, melancholy, confinement, and isolation. However, while the theme in the music tends to be "dark" in nature, some artists create more organic soundscapes. Examples of such productions are those of Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, and Klaus Wiese.